Discernment, and the Heart of Social Change

In early 2025, ILF was invited to contribute to a university course offered by Dr. Leila Angod at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, titled Youth Culture and Activism. 

Dr. Angod and ILF have crafted a unit of the course around the topic of discernment and judgment. When we think of activism, most of us often think immediately of fervent and charged action. 

Rarely, especially with our passionate action, do we pause to explore within ourselves what our “why” is behind the action or activism. And, maybe more importantly, where does our “why” come from: discernment or judgment? Before exploring various models of social change, like civic participation and abolition as vehicles of transformation,

why are we doing what we’re doing?

Nearly half of the 62 students of this course formed their final projects around this exploration - what is the difference in activism when the activist prioritizes discernment or prioritizes judgment. 

ILF is honored and overjoyed to share with you the three final projects we chose to share on our website. These three projects were chosen by a team of three ILF volunteers with the criteria of:

1. Does the project touch my heart?

2. Does the writing invite me to expand my world-view?

3. Does the writer share their own heart?

4. Does the project assume that its value can contribute to future education?

Their reflections on this content speak volumes to the impact that is available to us when we bring intuitive learning into the formal educational context. 

We want to extend a warm and heartfelt thank you to these three student authors. We hope in some small way that sharing their work here might inspire others to deep, heartful reflection, creativity and work in the world that opens the way for humanity to live in harmony with all of life.